http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081707C.shtml

Workouts, Not Bailouts
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Friday 17 August 2007

In April, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, declared that all
the signs he saw indicated that the housing market was "at or near the
bottom." Earlier this month he was still insisting that problems
caused by the meltdown in the market for subprime mortgages were
"largely contained."

But the time for denial is past.

According to data released yesterday, both housing starts and
applications for building permits have fallen to their lowest levels
in a decade, showing that home construction is still in free fall. And
if historical relationships are any guide, home prices are still way
too high. The housing slump will probably be with us for years, not
months.

Who "we" are: Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Liberals, Conservatives,
and Greens. We are Americans, and we hate Bush. Why? Read on:

1.. Bush and his oligarchic companions sabotaged American democracy so
they could pillage taxpayer resources.

2.. Bush and his cabal of henchmen lied to the American people about
Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and they continue to obfuscate the
truth while their companies cash in, Iraqis suffer and American soldiers
die.

3.. Bush is bad for business and the economy. He is only interested in
enriching himself and his friends.

4.. Bush is bad for the future. He is compromising the prosperity of
tomorrow's America by shortchanging today's children.

5.. Bush is bad for the environment.

6.. The Bush Administration has manipulated the media to the point of
undermining the Constitutional guarantees of a Free Press.

7.. Bush has tried to undermine the United Nations, a democratic
institution created in large measure by Presidents Eisenhower and Truman.
Without even understanding what the UN does, Bush has called it "irrelevant"
when it fails to fall in line with his dictates.

as the economic panic unfolds and ebbs and flows. i hear the usual
dogma out of the mouths of the free market liars that china and russia
are partners in the world economy. it is part of their religious
ideology to believe so.
they parrot the usual stuff about they can't live without us, vice
versa, yadda, yadda, yadda, and that no one wants to upset the apple
cart. and that they are our partners, not belligerent adversaries.
at the beginning of the economic panic china said flat out no to a
rate cut in the u.s.a.. even if it means our demise, and now china,
russia, and their allies are reemerging as military adversaries. does
this look like the actions of economic allies?
and how many times will we let free market shills blind us to the
real realities of the world. we are not all on the same page here.
most will lie and cheat to get what they want. no one really believes
this free market crap that we are all one working hard for the same
goals, and that no one wants to upset the apple cart crap.
on top of that, their form of economics has stripped out our
manufacturing capabilities, plus all of our technology, and wealth. it
has left us broke, deeply in debt to others that has resulted in a
almost complete loss of sovereignty, and most of our citizens in ...

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%%7BD9B907C7%%2D112C%%2D4B...

Aug 17, 2007

Losing steam

Shoppers start to slump as housing, credit woes take their toll

By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) --

The American consumer may finally be running out of gas.

Shoppers have already adjusted their spending to accommodate climbing
energy prices and interest rates, but the housing slump and problems
obtaining and affording credit are proving too tough to juggle for
many, according to some of the nation's largest retailers, who are
bracing for a tough second half of the year.

"Consumer spending has been moving ahead at reasonably healthy rates
in the past couple of months, but this latest drop in confidence will
likely take some wind out of the consumer's sails at the end of the
third quarter and in the fourth quarter," Brian Bethune, Global
Insight's economist, told MarketWatch on Friday.

Once again, Bill O'Reilly was determined to expose the truth about the left
wing media no matter how much he had to distort the truth in the process. As
always, he started with NBC then shifted to the anti- American and
anti-Christian horrors he found in the San Francisco Chronicle written by
Mark Morford and Robert Sheer. Armed with the selected quotes from two
opinion pieces, BOR was sure his viewers would light their torches and start
marching to San Francisco.

Bill was all excited because Joe Scarborough made a comment today on his new
morning show on MSNBC that BOR could use to attack the network. Scarborough
commented that on the first day he started at MSNBC in 2003 people in the
newsroom were booing Bush doing his State of the Union speech. Of course,
viewers had no idea what Scarborough said before or after the comment but
BOR saw it has definitive proof of NBC bias.

O'Reilly claimed Mark Morford "despises all people of faith". He didn't
mention that Morford's piece was about God Tube created by Christians
offended by YouTube. Morford's opinion piece from his bi-weekly column is
titled Jesus Loves Your Crappy Videos- the place where sex, humor and warm
spiritual inclusiveness go to die.

Today marks the one-month anniversary since the story broke about Mitt
Romney paying $300.00 for a makeup job. Cavuto still hasn't mentioned that,
though he has had time for roughly ten segments bashing $400.00-haircut-John
Edwards.

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/07/17/cavuto_mentioned_john_edwards_400_haircut_tw...

It's not a new tactic. Limbaugh does it often;that is to say he has proof
just before a commercial break.When the break is over he goes off on another
subject.The mission is to put it subliminaly in peoples minds that there is
proof of this or that. The absence of proof is forgotten.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6858794,00.html

Financial Pressures Force Snow Departure

Saturday August 18, 2007 2:01 AM

By TERENCE HUNT

AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) - White House press secretary Tony Snow said Friday
he'll leave before the end of the Bush presidency because he needs to
make more money.

``I'm going to stay as long as I can,'' he said without elaborating on
a departure date.

Snow's comment caught White House colleagues by surprise, and they
said they could not hazard a guess about when he might leave.

The 52-year-old Snow, the father of three children, earns $168,000 as
an assistant to the president but made considerably more as a
conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show host on Fox News Radio.
He was named press secretary on April 26, 2006.

Maybe Karen Hughes. Mary Cheney would make her a good husband.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2151383,00.html

How turbulence turned to calamity on Wall Street

After a panic-stricken week and fearing a downturn in the US economy,
the Fed was forced to step in. But has it done enough?

Larry Elliott, economics editor
Saturday August 18, 2007
The Guardian

On Wednesday, in the middle of a tumultuous week for the world's
financial markets, William Poole, one of the 12 men responsible for
setting interest rates in America, shrugged off fears that the crisis
in the United States housing market would drag down the economy and
said it would take a "calamity" to push the central bank into an
emergency cut in interest rates.

Less than 48 hours after Mr Poole gave his thoughts to the Bloomberg
news wire, the calamity duly seemed to have arrived yesterday morning.
Before the start of trading on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve
stepped in to calm panic-stricken global financial markets.

Edwards Calls Coulter A "She-Devil"

We know these people. We know their game plan. They're going to attack us
personally," Edwards said. "They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she
stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter. ... I should not have name-called.
But the truth is -- forget the names -- people like Ann Coulter, they engage
in hateful language."
In June, Coulter went on ABC's "Good Morning America" and said she had
learned her lesson after being blasted for suggesting in a joke before the
Conservative Political Action Conference that Edwards was a "faggot." "If
I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he
had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot," Coulter said.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/08/edwards-calls-c.html

Rush reported today that the investment firm that Edwards joined to "learn
about poverty" is foreclosing on 64 New Orleans homes.
But how Edwards has anything to do with 64 people losing their homes is
beyond me.

Rush is a she-devil, too.